Over the past decade, the demand for advanced telecommunication services has increased with population growth and technological innovation. One by-product of this demand is the frequent transfer of customer lines among central office switches. A common catalyst for the transfer of customer lines among switches is the "capping" of a central office switch. Capping is a well-known process which is instigated when an existing switch has reached its service capacity and is unable to serve the needs of the growing number of users who require additional telephone lines for equipment such as facsimile machines and personal computers. During the capping process, the growth of the switch is terminated (i.e. the switch is "capped") and additional customer lines are served by a new (usually more technologically advanced) switch. Invariably, some customers who are served by the capped switch request service features which are only available to those served by the new switch. Thus, the transfer of individual customer lines served by a capped (or "old") central office switch to a "new" central office switch is common during a capping process.
Transferring a customer line from one central office switch to another requires manually retrieving customer line data from a first switch and entering the same data into the memory of a second switch. If adding a new service feature is the impetus for the transfer, additional data specific to the newly added service feature must also be entered into the customer data file in the second switch. Since each central office switch typically serves one or more "blocks" of directory numbers (collectively having given office codes) wherein each block of directory numbers has a unique office code, the transfer of a customer line from one switch to another switch normally implies a directory number change. To serve customers who want to retain their current directory numbers during a central office switch change over, systems exist which enable a customer line to receive incoming telephone calls having a directory number with an office code which is different than the office code of the switch by which they are served. An exemplary embodiment of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,604 to Dierdre T. Hoesl entitled "Arrangement for Serving A Telephone Office Code from Two Switching Systems" which issued on Aug. 17, 1993.
Indeed, most customers who request new service features expect to keep their local directory number, as well as all of the existing features associated with their telephone service. To accommodate a customer's request and to ensure that there is no interruption of service, a carefully coordinated data exchange between switches is necessary.
The prior art coordinated data exchange process is initiated by a central provisioning system which is maintained by a local exchange carrier (LEC) and serves all central office switches in a local telecommunications network. Specifically, transferring customer line data from a first central office switch to a second central office switch requires the intervention of a service technician who receives a service work order from the central provisioning system, manually retrieves all data associated with a given customer directory number from a first central office switch and then manually installs the directory number data into a second central office switch.
The current process for customer directory number data transfer among central office switches is exemplified by the following scenario: A customer who is currently served by an analog switch decides to set up a home office. She plans to install a facsimile machine and personal computer in her home office and determines it would be beneficial to have ISDN service on her telephone line. Accordingly, the customer contacts a service representative of her local exchange carrier and requests ISDN service. Although the customer wants ISDN service, she clearly specifies that she does not want to change her current directory number of "708-555-1234". In response to the customer's request, the service representative enters a service order to provide ISDN service to the customer line identified by the directory number "708-555-1234" into a customer service operation support system (OSS).
Eventually, the service order reaches the central provisioning system which evaluates the order and if possible (i.e. if the LEC maintains a switch capable of providing ISDN to this customer), issues a work order ticket indicating that ISDN service is to be provided to the customer line identified by the directory number "708-555-1234". In this example, assume that the ,central office switch which serves directory number "708-555-1234" is an analog switch which is incapable of providing ISDN service. However, the LEC also maintains a digital switch (such as the 5ESS.RTM. switch sold by AT&T Network Systems) which is capable of providing ISDN service. Thus, to provide ISDN service to this customer, the customer's line must be wired to the digital switch. Nevertheless, in accordance with the customer's request, her local directory number of "708-555-1234" and all existing features of her telephone service must not change.
To complete this service order, a LEC technician physically wires a new customer line from a main distributing frame to the digital central office switch, he retrieves all customer data relating to directory number "708-555-1234" stored in the analog central office switch and enters the retrieved data and the newly requested ISDN feature into the digital central office switch. The technician must also program a new routing index in a separate database so that incoming calls may be properly delivered to the directory number, as is known in the art. After testing the newly established customer line to ensure that it is functioning properly, the technician severs the connection to the analog switch. Due to the manual retrieval and installation of data, the process is labor-intensive, time-consuming and prone to error. Therefore, there is a need in the art for automatically retrieving and installing customer data in a central office switch in response to a work order message received from a provisioning system in a local telecommunications network.